(Publisher’s Note: This feature was published a little more than two years ago, but with Kym still killing it on KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh, why not allow those who might not have seen it then to see it now.)
If Kym Gable had not miscalculated how many class credits she needed during her final semester at West Liberty State College, it is most likely people in the public would not know her name today.
Nor would she be the storyteller she is today.
That’s because, at the very end of her quest to earn a Communications Degree, Gable discovered she somehow was a credit hour short of the requirement. She needed a class, didn’t know which one to select, and that is when life-changing advice was offered by one of her mentors.
“I had no intentions of going into on-air broadcasting, but when I found out I was going to be short at the end of the senior year, I had to consider my options,” she remembered. “That’s when (professor) Chris Lee told me they needed an anchor of the news on the campus television station, but I called him crazy and told him I wasn’t going to do it.
“That’s when he told me that he had a good feeling about it, so I agreed to do a test broadcast, and I sat there and read the teleprompter, and right then and there it felt right. It felt like that’s where I belonged,” Gable admitted. “It just felt like it fit. It felt like God had plopped me down in that chair like it was a piece of my puzzle, and it definitely fit. I didn’t have any classes for that position, but it was where I belonged.”
The only broadcasting experience she gained at West Liberty was her one-hour-per-week on-air disc jockey shift on the college’s WGLZ 91.5 FM. The station’s transmitter was good for only 100 watts, but that frequency covered the entire hilltop campus. The only reason Gable showed up the shifts, though, was because it was required for her radio production class.
It was a public relations gig Gable thought she would seek once graduated, but thanks to Prof. Lee, she instead appeared on WTOV TV9 from 1994-99 before moving to Pittsburgh for Fox53. The media market in Pittsburgh, one that includes 16 counties in three different states, is the 23rd best in the United States with more than 1.2 million television viewers.
“I have been here at KDKA since 2006, and I was a reporter for the first 14 years before starting to anchor,” Gable explained. “Moving to anchor was a natural progression that some reporters want to make during their career, and before doing that full-time, I was the fill-in anchor when the others were taking their vacations or had a day off for whatever reason.
“I did that for over a decade, but once our twin daughters reached an age where I felt I had stayed home with them while working part-time for long enough, I felt it was time to make a more solid commitment to my broadcast career,” she said. “Since I started in this business, I always wanted to be a main anchor in Pittsburgh, so I’m happy I was able to make that happen. When the kids were born, though, I knew I didn’t want to work full-time anymore, but I didn’t want to give up this career of storytelling that I love so much.”
Twins on Top
Merris and Helena are 17 years old fraternal twins who are very different people in many ways, but alike at the same time. Gable is the director of the Inspired Women Paying It Forward’s South Chapter that meets in Washington County, and her daughters helps her operate the organization.
The charitable networking group has distributed more than $325,000 to non-profits as a part of its mission, and with her daughters involved, it makes the effort even more near and dear to her heart.
“I think some people probably thought that I was a little crazy for making the decision to go to part-time with KDKA because I had been offered several full-time positions in this market but each time, I said no. That’s why I feel very blessed to have the opportunity that I have now,” Gable said. “Mothers and fathers hear the word ‘balance’ all of the time, but that’s something I don’t think I’ve experienced because one day everything was tipped in one direction, but the next it was completely different.
“But I do believe I’ve choreographed our lives as best I could so that I could be with my daughters as much as possible, and so I could be at their events are often as I could,” she said. “All of their events and school activities always have been very, very important to me, and now that I look back, it’s a decision I would make all over again for sure.”
The 4, The 6, and Positive Notes
At the time when Gable first started reporting for Steubenville’s TV station, the newscast at 6 p.m. was the premiere show on all local stations, but these days stations across the country are offering multiple broadcasts each afternoon and evening.
That is why Gable currently co-anchors two newscasts each afternoon Monday through Friday, and also produces a weekly franchise segment called, “On a Positive Note.” The broadcast highlights uplifting stories about everyday heroes in Pittsburgh communities.
But she is not complaining.
“When people have asked me what I do, I usually tell them I am a storyteller instead of a reporter or a broadcaster because it gives me the opportunity to tell my story. People usually ask me to explain what I mean, and I’ll follow up by telling them I’m a television broadcaster who gets to tell stories for a living,” Gable said. “I’ve always paid attention to the best storytellers in my lifetime because it’s exactly what I wanted to do in some capacity.
“Whether it was a grandparent or a teacher in grade school, storytelling is something I’ve always appreciated very much during my life,” she continued. “That’s why I knew I wanted to be a good storyteller so that gift could be a part of my life.”
Another first during her career in broadcasting was the invention of social media and the need for media outlets to often market on the platforms.
“We are encouraged at the television station to post three times a day, so I try to find some things to make them as engaging as possible. If we have a storm system coming through, or if something big happens like the bridge that collapsed here in Pittsburgh,” Gable explained. “It’s about finding topics that will resonate with people and about the mix of my personal and professional lives.
“I am very mindful about what I post because I’m not going to sensationalize things at all,” she added. “It is difficult for me to put myself out there so much because I’m a little self-conscious, but most people are very nice about the posts. Of course, there are the critics, too, and that can make the job challenging at times because when I started my broadcasting career in the 1990s there was no such thing as social media. It’s always interesting, to say the least.”
